Meeting & Agendas

College updates (Eileen Klein): Expanding out to Round Rock, groundbreaking in early February; Health programs will expand out there in phases - by Eileen Klein State mandated 6 withdrawal limit: A total of 6 withdrawals allowed in a college career; implications in cohort programs; # of times a student can repeat anything-if a student is unsuccessful in prerequisite courses (anatomy) is three times; after that there is no financial aid; faculty in the program advise students to let them know if they are thinking about withdrawing from a required general education course; at this time no students have risked being in this category. Annual Accreditation Report and program statistics: 1. applicants 2. retention/graduation rate 3. licensure pass rate/content area scores More information is available to us using the CAPTE portal; includes cost to student; program budget; and more. Dr Klein suggested encouraging students to attend a campus tour. Dr. Klein: If a student does not pass do we have contact with them? Jana: Yes, we offer extensive remediation, gave examples. Jana mentioned she has noticed that students that cannot pass the licensing exam have difficulty reading. Dr Klein: How did students that can’t read pass the program? Jana reported that students come to open lab and work individually with faculty and lab assistants. Dr. Klein: Community colleges are encouraged to increase retention rates. How much remediation is enough? The program encourages students to meet with faculty or tutors if they make 80% or less on exams. This is in the PTA student handbook. Faculty meet with assigned students at midterm to review didactic and lab exam grades. Lab tutors are available to set study time. Minimum Standards for PTA for APTA: The new standards for entry level PTAs are available and they look appropriate. We were able to give input. New Equipment from Perkins and CWTC: Received a shuttle and new hi-lo plinths in the budget process per faculty request. Perkins reallocation has come up. The Wii is a modality that is being used in many rehab environments. Eileen suggested the program research and submit. Club update and awards: Bridget Carroll-Outstanding Student Award for ACC; Outstanding PTA Student; two years in a row have won Project Build A Park; sent 17 students to Lubbock for the TPTA Annual Conference and Student Conclave: the club helped with hotel and students paid out of pocket for their own airfare; Massage fundraisers have been very successful raising approximately $400-$500; student life paid for conference registration; Student Life has also assisted with club polo shirts; 8 students received Who’s Who Awards in spring of 2008. TPTA awards: Jose Milan won PTA faculty award; Bridget Carroll won outstanding PTA student. Outcomes Surveys: strategies to increase return rate in subsequent years was discussed including phone calls and emails and maybe using Survey Monkey; OIE helped with exit survey with good results.

Accreditation Status – defer action with progress report due Feb. 16: 5 criterion were found to be non-compliant and 11 were found to be in conditional compliance. The optional 5-semester plan was not well defined for CAPTE and the program will answer the identified questions. However, based on current related data the program feels it would be less confusing to applicants and a better use of program resources to move forward with one 5-semester plan. The core faculty have researched and conferred with other similar programs in the state to determine best practices. A proposed 5-semester plan is provided to compare with the optional 5-semester tract that was approved by the curriculum committee and the traditional tract that has proven successful. Jana asked that the attendees look at the proposed plan from the vantage point of all stakeholders including applicants, students, faculty, employers and clinical instructors. Discussion - Human Physiology: Dr. Klein: Must be compliant with 5-semeseter plan. With the exception of the summer semester, there is not a way for students to take Human Anatomy in a short semester followed by Human Physiology. Both could not be in the prerequisite semester. Jana: Human Physiology has been on the degree program the first semester of the technical program, however students would occasionally not complete it in that sequence. Discussion - 5 semester plan: Gen Ed and Co-requisites all must be within a 5-semester plan; Other programs advise students to take all other courses than PTA classes ahead of time. Must consider financial aid, students need 12 hrs; advising becomes important; some students were taking human physiology after taking pathophysiology. Do you have data from student survey saying it should be a prerequisite? Yes, many have said so in surveys. Is there any way to make the non-PTA courses float between different semesters? Collapse the Data Collection class and return objectives back into the classes they were taught in prior to 2002. Other programs have Intro to PT as a prerequisite course. Used by a number of Texas CC programs; open credit course; may increase applicant pool. Other Texas CC programs are filling at a minimum 2 sections each semester. Not having summer classes will give students opportunities to take gen ed courses or to work. Will need to look at impact on faculty workloads. Exam prep elective course can also be used with Intro to PT for faculty workloads. Can a student take Speech in the summer? No, student can be ahead of the cohort but not behind. Impact on clinical sites: Summer is hardest to place students would be a PRO. Nora: With advanced notice to the ACCE should not be a big deal. Must plan accordingly. Spring has higher patient volume, would help. Reinforce clinical skills by having back-to-back clinicals. The transition will be very difficult. Must have a “teach-out” and start a new curriculum. Workloads are very heavy. Must explain to the college how we will do this. Feb 26th is the next curriculum meeting. Jana is preparing the required forms. Adjunct faculty would be an easy solution. Discussion Admissions Process: Should we look at changes to admissions? Should GPA be higher? Eileen and others: Too many changes at one time would not be good, it may dry up the applicant pool and make it hard to evaluate data. Advisory board: Any thoughts to the admission process? Look at TSI. Is there another assessment that is better at looking at reading and comprehension? Jana will at other programs. Carol recommended exploring GPA. Cherie recommended exploring remediation for poor readers. Look at what kind of bachelor’s degrees are students coming in with? Does that matter as far as success in the program. Will be easier to follow with highlighted changes on course objectives and outcomes form. Brochure stated that APTA accredited program not CAPTE. We cannot redo until all brochures are redone and that date is not available. Will make changes on those that go out from our office with an overlay depicting the correct accreditation information. The student obtains knowledge in lecture of the test and positive results, but does not check off on the skills. Debridement is also taught to knowledge base, but is not a lab skill. The wording on wound care objectives is intended to teach knowledge of debridement in order to facilitate communication with the supervising PT.

Karen: Macs have been revised. Sent out for publication. Instead of logs, each is broken down into skills. Mostly minor changes. Has been shortened. Should be easier to use.